THE THEATRE.

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2390, 20 February 1915, Page 5

THE THEATRE.

the World's a t/ieatre; tlie Eartb a stage.—Heywood. Patriotic Comedy,. In view of tho fact that the whole of the profits of tho Plimmer-Hall Comedy Company's tour are to be donated to tho New Zealand Patriotic I'und, tho visit of the company promises to be a notable one. To make his intentions quite clear, Mr. Plimmer will call upon the proper authorities in oach city and. town visited to handle all moneys, and in a private letter suggests that a committee of ladies bo formed to assist in the sale of tickets and in otherwise helping in the good work. The company will include such talented players as Messrs. H. Plimtner, Winter Hall, Cyril Mackay, Henry Halley, Paul Latham, Robt. White,jun., Miss Beatrice Day (who has been doing valuable recruiting work in Melbourne), Miss Gertrude Boswell, Miss Ena Collins. Miss Muriel Dale, Miss Nellie Colvm, and Miss Marjorie Soper. Instead of the usual orchestra, music will be provided of a novel character.- Mrs. Hall and her sister are both brilliant pianists, and they will play music of a high-class character especially for two pianos by Mr. Alfred Hill, who? is, as a New Zealander, taking a lively interest in tho tour. The plays to be presented will., be Oscar Wilde's brilliant comedy "Lady Windermere's Fan" (recently revived in New York by Miss Margaret Anglin), and which has not been seen here since the Brough-Boucicault days, and Mrs. le Pasture's charming play, "Peter's Mother;" Early Pantomime. The Willoughby Pantomime Company playing "The Babies in the Wood is to descend on New Zealand next month. Miss Daisy Jerome, who was only a partial success in Wellington, is billed as the bright particular "star" as Maid Marian, and dainty Dorothy Harris appeared as "Robin Hood" (which charac-j ters .have accidentally strayed into the old nursery rhyme). Mr. Dan Thomas is the dame, Mr: Billy Watson is Baron Hardup, and Messrs. Bert lo Blanc and Edward Stanley figure as a couple of burlesque robbers. Miss Nellie Fallon is Marjorie Daw, and Miss Lola Hunt ig Will Scarlet.

About a Wellington Actor. Playgoers have come to look to Pirie Bush for eccentric studies of the human species (says the Sydney "Sun"), and they do not look in vain. Each new play produced by. Fred Niblo for the Williamson management has a' representative freak perpetrated by E. Pirie Bush. And on first nights he gets a round of applause second only to that accorded to the popular stars of the comedy organisation. In Broadway. Jones Mr. Bush plays a country yob, a youth with large ambitions and small mental capacity. He makes his first appearance picking out the live finger exercises on a banjo, and exhibits a deadly concentration over this practice that is most humorous in effect. Throughout the play this same intensity is manifested' in everything don© b,v : him, and he carries off quite a good gleaning from the harvest of laughs for the night. . How Mr. Bush oame to be engaged for the Niblo Company is a story in itself. Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford was causing the management some hard thinking on' the matter of casting. It happened that Hugh. J. Ward and Fred Niblo were one afternoon on the verge of despair over it. They Tjere < sitting in the Williamson offices, and the door from the room was open. In the room adjoining sat Mr. Ward's secretary. Suddenly Mr. Ward put his foot on Mr. Niblo's, and cocked his ears. A tall, slight youth had entered the adjoining room, and was asking the secretary 3 thero was any chance of a part with Mr; Niblo. . , "Ssh," said Mr. Ward to his star, "there's Eddie Lamb!" "Sent straight from heaven 1" said Mr. Niblo. The youth was .called in and questioned/ He had been playing in the country towns, and had gained a lot of rough experience. The outcome of. the talk was that he was engaged for the part of: Eddie Lamb in "Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford." That was E. Pirie Bush's beginning on the metropolitan stage. ■ . His Englishman in "Excuse Me" was an excellent caricature of the insular Britisher. His. performance as the pal of the young millionaire in . "Officer 666" was ' ajiother amazing remembrance. As the holder of the seventh key in "Seven Keys to Baldpate" he was also a hit. ■ "Two men tried to stop me as I came in, and I shot them both dead!" he announced dramatically to the bewildered novelist. . . - The idea of 'Mr. Bush killing a fel-low-creature, let alone two, made that speech of his. • . Mr. Bush is a son of Mr. Thos. Bush, of Wellington, and is not an Australian, as the Sydney journal in its heading would have people believe.

A Mystifying Play. The striking thing about "Seven to Baldpate, in which Fred'Niblo is to appear in Melbourne, is that the mys-tery-farce upsets every precedent, and is entirely differeut to any. other play that ever was written. No one can guess what happens next. Any ideas of what is going to transpire are knocked to atoms when something entirely the opposite to what waß expected 'transpires. And when the denouement takes place, and the audience exclaim, "Ah, I thought that's what it would be," the next moment they find that even then they are wrong, and the playi switches off on to another line of surprises! "Seven Keys to Baldpate" is about the most mystifying concoction of a play that was ever perpetrated by such a real practical joker as its author, the irrepressible George M. Cohan,_ the millionaire brother of Its. Fred Niblo..

Notes. "I have just come from a performance of 'The-Seven Little Australians,' writes Mr. E. Pirie Bush, the Wellington actor with the Niblo Comedy . Company, "and I thought maybe that _you would be interested to hear about little Cecil Haines. It is the most wonderful natural child performance I have ever seen. She gets the audience' at every turn,' and has the most delightful sense of comedy. What is more wonderful is that she has the art of getting a good line 'over' down to the finest point. Hearing the play discussed, one only hears about Suds's (Cecil's) part. She has certainly made the hit of the piece. The other children are good, but are quite overshadowed by the dear little New Zealander." Mr. 13. P. Bush, writing from Sydney, states the Niblos. intend to leave for America in May, and that he is going to follow them in June. In between times he hopes to spend in the bosom of his family in Wellington. Mr, Bush has been a member of the Niblo Comedy Company from its initiation in Australia, and the lively American comedian has taken a live interest in making an actor out of the young man. , Mr. Reginald Kenneth, of the "Glad Eye" Company was not always in comedy. Ho will be remembered as a member of the Williamson Musical Comedy Company which played "The Blue Moon," "Lady Madcap," and "The Little Michus" here about eight years ago. ■